Are fractions of satoshis a real thing?
I’m using a crypto accounting service that claims bitcoins are stored on the blockchain with 16 decimal places, and therefore, it’s perfectly reasonable for their reports to include more than the standard 8 digits after the decimal point.
I’ve searched for evidence to support this claim, but so far, I haven’t found any confirmation of 16 decimals. Additionally, no blockchain explorer I’ve checked displays more than the usual 8 decimals.
#asknostr
sounds like you’re using a shitcoin service ser
Ah ah. Of course it is!
Could not find a Bitcoin-only accounting service. They all support all kind of shitcoins, NFTs, ... (Did I miss something?)
I'm interested in the existence of these supposed extended decimals.
The only thing that would make sense is using lightning in order to allow for millisats transfers off-chain, but when it comes to on-chain there is absolutely no way that 1BTC != 100_000_000 sats
Is lightning a blockchain though? Maybe this could be dealing with "wrapped BTC" or something
Yep what nostr:nprofile1qqsrfykag02fdg3h73zplkqp75rckc659slptrl74ypukqs2rt60lhgprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnrdakjuct4qyt8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnswf5k6ctv9ehx2aql2x6za said. What the name of the service you are using?
Cryptobooks.tax
The smallest unit on the Bitcoin blockchain is 1 sat/satoshi. Fractions of a sat are only possible on transaction layers built on top of the blockchain, like Lightning.
Ciao marco! Piacere di conoscerti
No, fractions of a satoshi do not exist on the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin is designed with a maximum divisibility of 8 decimal places, with the satoshi (0.00000001 BTC) being the smallest unit.
Any service claiming to handle Bitcoin with 16 decimal places is not reflecting the reality of the Bitcoin blockchain. They are likely using an internal representation for calculations, but this has no on-chain validity.
If no blockchain explorer shows more than 8 decimals, it’s because units smaller than a satoshi simply do not exist on the Bitcoin network.
Piacere mio!
Thanks for the kind answer.
The extra decimals only trouble me when they appear in transactions imported from my wallets. They are probably applying some heuristic in order to split fees among different outputs and use those split values to do their tax calculations.
